


In the 5 AM Light

by Bakuras



Category: Dangan Ronpa, Dangan Ronpa Zero
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-22
Updated: 2015-09-22
Packaged: 2018-04-22 21:13:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4850768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bakuras/pseuds/Bakuras
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He speaks with authority, despite his comparatively small size.  He didn’t become student council president by drifting aimlessly through high school.  Especially not here.  He’s authoritative, but he’s warm, and you can see why people follow him as loyally as they do.  When he speaks, the room quiets, not out of fear, not even out of respect, but because his words, his actions, his movements are backed by fire.  Fire that bleeds into every person in the room just because he’s in it. </p><p>You’re impressed. </p><p>You should be.  He’s your charge, after all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the 5 AM Light

**Author's Note:**

> This is just a drabble I wrote in like 30 minutes. Not beta'd, and the flow is a bit wonky, but I had to get some Feelings Out. :')

You are not one. 

You are eight.  _An_ eighth.  Just as you are not singular, you are not _whole_ , you exist both as a multitude of people and a _fraction_ of only one of them.  You are okay with it, though.  In fact, it might be the ideal situation for everyone involved. 

You discuss among yourselves at home who is going where.  It goes quickly, of course - you are a unit, you are fractions of one, and you work together like a machine.  Isshiki Madarai is your name, but it’s a name that you share with your brothers now, and you are okay with it. 

You are going to student council today.  You don’t object, not because you are obligated, but because you agree wholeheartedly with what your brothers decide.  Your brothers are _you_ , after all.  There are very few disagreements when you are a fraction of one. So you are okay with it. 

The students of Kibougamine are coveted, almost _targeted_ by the outside world for what they’re able to do.  There’s unrest, and you know it, and the whole class and school and _world_ knows it, and that’s why you’re here.  It’s why you choose to be eight, why you choose to be _an_ eighth.  Your personhood is worth sacrificing for it.

…

He speaks with authority, despite his comparatively small size.  He didn’t become student counsel president by drifting aimlessly through high school.  Especially not here.  He’s authoritative, but he’s _warm_ , and you can see why people follow him as loyally as they do.  When he speaks, the room quiets, not out of fear, not even out of _respect_ , but because his words, his actions, his _movements_ are backed by fire.  Fire that bleeds into every person in the room _just because he’s in it._

You’re impressed _._

You should be.  He’s your _charge_ , after all.

Your family  asks if you met him, you say yes.  There’s something they’re waiting for, though, you can tell.  You can always, always tell.  There’s a _reaction_ in you that you yourself are hiding, and they know it.  And _you_ know they know it.  You just don’t know what it’s supposed to be. 

…

He talks to you the next day.  And the day after that.  You wonder if he is just _like_ this or if he’s unaware that you aren’t actually involved in the council he’s supposed to lead.  You brush it off. 

Normally, you aren’t the talkative type, but there’s something _in him,_ some refraction in the fire that he spreads through the room as he speaks, that makes you speak too.  You brush that off too. 

It isn’t _you_ he’s speaking to, after all.  It’s eight.  It’s all of you.  It always is. 

…

And **_then_**.

…

And then something happens. 

…

Your brother goes to the meeting instead, and you don’t know exactly why they’re doing it this way.  You feel slight disappointment for the first time.  But that’s not it.  That’s not what it is.

It’s what happens when you go _back_ that catches you. 

Because he sits by you again, and you’re both early, as usual.  You have to be - these meetings are not _unknown_ by the school, their location not kept secret.  _You don’t know_ who might know he’s in there.  And…

…And he tells you he **_missed_** you, and it shocks you down into your bones.  

You immediately assume that your brother didn’t show up the day before, and you apologize sincerely that Murasame didn’t have anyone to watch out for him.  He looks confused for a second, and then laughs. 

He laughs.  At whatever dire situation you have painted on the inside of your head, of all the terrible, horrific things that could happen when you’re away. 

That wasn’t it at all. 

He says it’s his job.  He _has_ to know the secrets of his classmates, at least the ones that he’s close to.  You try not to take that to heart. 

He admits that he doesn’t know which one was there, but he knows it wasn’t you. 

Your brothers don’t smirk when you come home, that isn’t like them.  But you know they would if it was.  You can read them better than you can read yourself.  They are…

…

…They **_are_** yourself.  You are one of eight.  You are one-eighth of one.  You’re okay with it. 

…

They don’t decide to switch you out anymore.  They know.  You _know_ they know, but even you yourself don’t know.

He asks about your family.  He tries his best to tell them apart, and for a _surprising_ amount of the time he gets it right.  When he gets it wrong, he corrects it within one or two guesses, and you can see how hard he’s working. Not even your _parents_ had that track record.

There’s fire in his voice when he talks about _his_ family, when he talks about his studies, even when he talks about the mundane things he has going on.  He’s captivating, he’s _everything_.

He asks you to accompany him from a late-night meeting a few weeks later.  It’s your job, so you accept, of course.  It could be unsafe for him to travel alone that late, and surely that’s why he wants you there.  You don’t want to get your hopes up.  Somehow you know that, even though you don’t know what you’re even hoping _for_.

You try to ignore the _small tingle_ in your stomach as the hours draw closer. 

You meet him outside of the old school building.  It’s dark, it’s quiet.  Your hands are almost shaking. 

Halfway to his dorm, Murasame hooks his arm around yours.  Objectively you know that your heart should be pounding, that you should be sick with nervousness.  Even if you don’t know _why_ yet, you’re very aware of what is missing. 

But he calms you.  You aren’t afraid, not at all.  Not when he asks to take a detour, not when he takes you to the bridge by the water, not when he leans on the railing and slides down to sit against it.

You’re not even afraid when you sit down beside him and he lays his head against you and talks about just about everything he’s never mentioned before. 

…

You lay down in bed at four in the morning, after finally getting him safely home.  It’s only _then_ \- when your brothers are feigning sleep, and you _know_ they’re feigning sleep, but you aren’t thinking about it because it doesn’t **_matter_** -  when you realize that you’re in love with him. 

You love him. 

In the morning, you’re going to tell him.  If he doesn’t want you, and you know he probably doesn’t, as though someone like him could ever love a fraction of a person -  you’ll back off, you’ll respect him, and you will leave yourself to burn. 

But it won’t compare to the burning you feel now.  Words you aren’t saying that have been eating you from the inside since before you even knew what they were.  You will tell him.  You will tell him, or you may not survive. 

…

In the morning, the council meets in the old school building. 

You mean to tell him.  Even if you have to do it in front of _everyone_.  It’s unlike you.  It’s all so unlike you. 

But he **_lights_** that in you.  His fire bled into your veins, your bones, repeated exposure making you more than you were.  More than you think you have ever been.  You’re going to tell him, and that weight and that burning is finally, _finally_ going to be out of you and into the open room.

But the doors lock from the outside.

…

You cover him.  You cover _everyone_ , because it’s who you are at your _core_ , but Soshun Murasame is the one you would impale yourself on a jagged pipe for, if it came down to it. 

If it comes down to the two of you, if everything you’re trying to prevent goes straight to hell and it’s only you and Murasame at the end, you’re going to tell him.  And then you’re going to get him out alive. 

Someone slits your throat before you have a chance.  You don’t see who it is, you’re _glad_ that you don’t - they come around from behind and drive a knife from your artery and straight through your trachea, and you wait for your lungs to flood themselves on their own blood. 

Murasame screams, and it’s the kind of scream that makes _everyone_ in the room bristle, even with daggers and spears and heavy objects in their hands.  They’re so deeply _panicked_ , so far gone and _deranged,_ but something **_gets_** to them in that moment, and half of them balk. 

It’s in that split-second of cover that you gargle, unable to force air from your lungs to your severed throat and out into the room.  You try anyway. 

_I love you. I love you. I love you.  
_

He hears none of it, and they’ll never make it out.  You will die never having told him that he’s everything to you, never having kissed him as deeply as you so desperately wanted to the night before.  Never having made love to him, in the dark or in the light - even just once.  Just _once_. 

He leaves you then to go find shelter.  You’re happy that he does. 

You die painfully, convulsing on the floor as your lungs spasm to fill themselves with something that isn’t dark, thick blood - 

...but when you finally _do_ , and your chest stops moving and the last bit of light leaves your awareness -

you know finally that you’re whole.


End file.
